


things that we were

by Larrant



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, introspect, poor huxy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larrant/pseuds/Larrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kylo Ren becomes Ben Solo, he leaves more than just his old name behind.</p><p>  <i>They had been lovers, when they had not yet found (lost?) their way.</i></p><p>EDITED : 22/01/16</p>
            </blockquote>





	things that we were

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy <3!

 

 

They had been nothing, first. Their meeting inconsequential on the hangar of a star destroyer, Hux's hand raising into an empty salute and Ren inclining his head shallowly in what would be the most respect either of them would ever give the other. There had been no knowledge, not then, of whatever might follow. Hux had been a freshly minted General.

 

They had been nothing, first. They had become nothing again, eventually.

 

And they had been lovers, once.

 

They had been lovers, when they had not yet found (lost?) their way.

 

It had been an inescapable course of events, that was how it had seemed for both of them looking back on that time. And they did. Both of them. Thoughts of regret, thoughts of _what if_ , thoughts of guilt and anger and betrayal. It would have been better, they knew, had it never happened.

 

But if you had been there, if you could have _seen_ \- the first hints of what they would become insidiously making their mark when that tenuous respect between them began to disintegrate into nothing, when they had become enemies in a fashion of the word. And then, a darker foreshadowing- still unnoticed, how could they not have realized- once they grudgingly realized the power the other held and had become rivals- and the enmity between them, the rivalry, the hatred-

 

(trivia, unimportant, but you should know; it was not ever hatred that ever drove the hard knives between their chests, but they were broken creatures of molten rock and glass and they did not know any other word for the heat that pulsed with such vivid burn through their veins)

 

-and maybe it was inevitable they eventually took to warming each other's beds, just another method of how they tried to exert their dominance over the other, if not in the metal corridors and cold expanses of meeting rooms then in the sheets instead.

 

And at one point in time, one single, fleeting moment, they had been everything the galaxy gave them a name for, and they had been so much more.

 

 _And we can rule the galaxy together, you and me_.

 

Foolish? Yes, it was foolish.

 

But you were not there. How could you understand- how could _anyone else_ understand the attraction that had sparked between them, irresistible and dark, something insidious that had trapped them before any realization could be made, the mutual _pull_ that had been returned- the **hate** that had drawn them to each other more deeply, more _truly_ , than any kind of camaraderie could.

 

(no, it was not hatred, but neither of them would realize that until it became too late)

 

They were not a fairytale. They did not need to be.

 

In all things it was only a battle for dominance, in this it was no different. And the nails that had cut and the fingers that had bruised marked so much more deeply than any soft murmur could ever do on their skin. The teeth that dragged across skin, the blood that tasted so sweet on devouring lips- they clawed at each other's insides, taking and giving and tearing.

 

( _lie:_

 

_afterwards. invisible, the hand that brushes softly across the contour of an angled cheek, hovers over the steady beat of life in a sleeping chest. lingers there for a moment before withdrawing._

 

 _the door slides shut with a soft hiss. ~~in the darkness, gray eyes flutter open~~_ )

 

They were not a secret, far from a secret- he bore his marks above his collar and _he_  made his blunt propositions in open corridors, and yet nobody knew, for nobody thought to know. A Sith and a General. Kylo Ren and Hux. Implausible as it was impossible. And yet, if only you _saw_ , it was true, all of it.

 

(ah, and an afterthought; it was always just _Hux_ , the name Ren called him, the name that was wrung from unwilling lips in the heat of the instant- _Hux Hux **Hux**_ , he had left what other name behind (surpassed it) long long ago, something like that had never belonged to him anyway)

 

If it should be compared to anything, then compare it to a honeytrap that pulled them both in, coiled them so in their mutual desire and lies- and every step they took was a step closer to the edge. The adrenaline thrilled them- almost enough to forget the ending that awaited. But it is common sense also that at some point, the edge stops, and the abyss begins.

 

They fall.

 

(the falling is the easy part, and it would have been easy, if there was nothing but emptiness forever when they fell)

 

For those short months, the days when they woke with marks inscribed on their body and the nights when they reapplied them with fervour, the cycle of desperation and insurmountable passion. It was almost perfection.

 

Maybe it was, in their own twisted way.

 

Everything ends. The landing must follow the fall.

 

For them, it ends in a crackle of a comm, the snap of a line as it goes dead, trackers suddenly fizzled out, Ren vanished into thin air as if he had never existed. And a holovid, taken only the very next day in the middle of a bustling spaceport.

 

A man, black haired and dark eyed, with nothing on his back but ashen clothes and black boots on his feet (the hair and face are the only recognizable things, perhaps because they didn't have trackers implanted in the man's body). And the girl, the girl with brown hair that he meets, bright eyed and with a wary but real smile- and a lightsaber buckled proudly at her hip.

 

Hux watches, motionless, as he takes her hand, leaves with her.

 

He remembers, distantly while the others discuss in heated tones and angry words,  recalls how they had fucked only days before, how the moans had filled the air and how soft Ren's scent had been in his nose. Absently, he touches his collarbone, feels with the pad of his thumb the bruise that has mottled from sickly orange and purple on his flesh to a dull green. It will fade soon, in another week and a half. And then even that last mark Ren has left on him will be gone.

 

He does not look at it until it goes.

 

He does not grieve.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Alone on the shuttle, his hands are shaking, almost imperceptibly so, and he realizes he can't stop the goddamned shaking. His black robes have been exchanged for a lighter colour now, the lightest he has worn in years, and his lightsaber has been stowed away deep in the bag stuffed under the bunk. There's nothing else on him from his other life, nothing else to tie him to Kylo Ren- but he could not run the _risk_ of keeping anything else; he knows that Hux had trackers on him, and where exactly they were he had never found out. He couldn't risk it.

_at the time, he had almost been amused, and just a little touched_

A flash of hesitation then, the jarring memory of the red hair and gray eyes he had seen only yesterday. He reaches out of habit, not realizing until he's touched the raw silk that covers his thigh, and he can feel the warmth penetrating through the fabric. A moment of hesitation, and then he presses down, winces before relaxing at the dull pain that spikes through his flesh. He knows if he looks that he'll see the fingerprints, tattooed there on his skin in green and purple.

_he doesn't know what he'll do, when these marks fade_

But he's left everything behind now, even that man.

_it hurts and it hurts and it **hurts**_

He knows- he tells himself he knows (does it make a difference?)- that it was for the best. That _this_ is for the best. It was not a thing that could have lasted anyway- sooner or later, something would have broken, something would have had to give. He couldn't have stayed there, not just for a single man. He _couldn't_.

_a part of him hates himself for being unable to_

Kylo Ren closes his eyes again for the last time.

_but that was a lie, that was a lie a lie a lie he's always been kylo he'll still be kylo_

Ben Solo sees the light in the first time for ten years.

_the light looks no different_

 

* * *

 

 

Their meeting is inevitable, Hux on a ship that is close to self destructing, and Solo on the other end of the corridor, stepping out from the destruction with his blue blade gleaming in the flickering, breaking lights.

 

Hux shoots. Reflex. Solo deflects the blast.

 

"This is the end of the line for you, General. Surrender!" The Jedi speaks, voice quietly controlled and yet resounding despite the pitch, and really- does he think Hux can't hear it, that faintest tremor in his tone, belying whatever emotion it was caused by.

 

A moment. Nothing. Hux does not give way.

 

Hesitation. Momentarily. Words leaving Solo's lips like a plea- for a moment no longer _Solo_ speaking, but someone else, someone else in his body. " _Come back with me_."

 

And Hux smiles in return. An even softer thing.

 

It is hatred, raw and yet polished to diamond, stretched in every feature of Hux's expression, peaceful and calm. You might call it this; the gaze of a monster.

 

Ben almost flinches when he sees it, when he understands the frozen emotion for what it is. Is this what he has caused, he wonders, and does not seek to recognize the emotion in his chest. _What he has made_. Solo steps forward, determination suddenly etching itself into his features. If this is what he has made, then this too will be his to end.

 

(ah, even if his grip on his lightsaber falters, fingers shaking as he holds the hilt)

 

But the moment he takes a step, that is the same moment the ship jars, the moment that with a creak and a crash the ceiling beams fall in and their respective peoples arrive- stormtroopers suddenly swarming, surrounding Hux without warning and hiding the black of his uniform from sight. And the Rebels too, from his side of the bridge, and then they are forced to leave before the entire ship can combust on them and before they are all shot to death.

 

It's the first and last time they see each other face to face again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When he gets back, he goes to his room, locks the door behind him and sinks down on the bed. He doesn't bother to wash. There's only one thing in his consciousness, and it is a face that will not leave no matter how much he wills it to go.

_it hurts, deep deep deep down in his chest_

He should have seen it coming, Hux thinks suddenly, the same thought that for months has plagued him in the day and in the night- and it is a deathly cold rage curling now low in his gut. And the rage is a visceral thing, past rage and into hatred, something that makes his hands shake and his breath go jagged in their contour, something utterly unlike the eerie calm he had shown earlier, the calm that had belied the depth of his rage. And there a bitter vengeance here in the air, a _cold_ vengeance that seeks to redeem itself in the heaviness of the still air.

_and the air is always so still, now that that man is gone_

He walks again to the console, switches it on and waits for it to power, arms shaking. It lights back at him with the page he had last been viewing. His hand reaches out, nails dragging along the contours of the face on the screen. Ben Solo. With an unreadable gaze, his eyes focus deeper on the picture that has captured every crease and shadow on those features. He categorizes every shade of colour on the pale skin. His fingers tighten, and oh, he  **hates**.

_he hates himself_

He can't forget. He can't forget.

_he'll never let himself forget_

He recalls it as if yesterday, they way they had fucked, the marks Ren had left on every inch of his body, bruises and cuts and bitemarks that had felt like beautiful salvation instead of any wound nor injury- and his hands grip the desk in sudden disgust, hard enough that something creaks in the metal. His flesh feels wretched on his frame, he feels like a snake that needs to shed its skin, like a snake with a scale that's ingrowing and that needs to _get out_. Even though the marks are gone now, it feels like they are still thick on his body- filthy and dirty and **degrading**.

_but there's not a part of him that isn't tainted, not even inside_

Once, it had not felt like this. Once, they had been like something else.

_he remembers the way kylo had cried out his name, flushed and sweating and voice sweet as honeyed wine_

But the betrayal stings deep now, deeper than Hux knows how to convey- except a part of him does know, he _does_ know intimately how to express this emotion, and he understands even now that the heat will not abate, not ever- not until Kylo Ren is bleeding out at his _feet_ , limbs cut off and his last dying breath rattling on his tongue. He will never find calm until he guts it from the man who had taken it from him. That is the only way Hux will **ever** be able to make his peace.

_and if that's the only way, he knows already he'll never find his peace_

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: itsakylo.tumblr.com  
> keep it secret, yeah? =D


End file.
